How To Write A Mystery

By Mary Rosenblum

 

            Mysteries are one of the most popular genres of fiction out there, and one of the most reliable sellers.  Once you build an audience they remain loyal to you, buying every book you write in a series.  And mystery publishers do want series.   If you’re a mystery reader, why not give it a try?  But what makes a good mystery?

 

            Whodunnit?

            Of course, the central core of the mystery is the ‘whodunnit’.  Someone is dead or a crime has been committed. Who killed that person, who is the perpetrator?  The mystery turns on the resolution of that question.  Most of the time, the reader only finds out who the killer is in the final scene.  But occasionally, we know who did it from page one, and the story turns on whether or not the officials can puzzle out the answer in time to stop the villain before he strikes again. 

            An interesting puzzle is essential to the mystery.   It does not have to be the most powerful element of the book, but it needs to be strong enough to keep the reader interested and guessing until the final page.  Readers are in competition with you.  They are trying to solve the mystery before you reveal the end.  You want to win this contest.   A powerful plot that surprises the reader, such as in Val McDermid’s A Place of Execution can really catch reader attention. 

 

            Character, Character, Character

          Characters matter in all stories, but strong, realistic characters are particularly important in mystery.  Mystery readers care about characters, and often, it is the character that carries the series rather than unusual and compelling plots.  Readers look forward to spending time with Miss Marple, Hercule Poirot, Spenser, or Phillip Marlow, no matter what their favorite sleuth is up to.   A strong, realistic main character is essential to successful mystery, whether you intend a series or a stand alone novel. 

 

            The Bonus Factor

            Setting tends to take second billing to plot and character in most fiction.  In the mystery genre it is an important ‘bonus factor’ and frequently influences a new writer’s success or failure in selling the work to a major publisher.  Essentially the mystery publishers are looking for ‘sexy’ in a new book.  That may be an interesting or exotic locale…such as Dana Stabenow’s highly successful series set in Alaska…or it may be a main character with an interesting career, such as Dick Francis’s mysteries with his steeple-chase jockey sleuth.  While a well plotted book with solid, three-dimensional characters is saleable, you are competing with many other new writers with good plots and characters.  If your mystery is set in an unusual locale, perhaps an Amish village, or  your main character has an interesting career, perhaps he’s a lion tamer for Barnum and Bailey’s circus, you are much more likely to catch a major publisher’s eye.  Readers love to meet new and interesting people or visit places they might only know about through the occasional magazine article. 

 

            Does It Have To Be Murder?

          No, you do not need to kill anyone in your mystery, but you will need to create high stakes for your character.  Mystery is all about solving the crime.  Your crime may not be murder, but it must engage the reader.  Catching a shop lifter may not be enough to drag your reader away from the TV news long enough to get involved.  In reality, most of the mysteries on the shelf do involve murder in some form, although it may turn out by the end that the murder is not what the reader expects.  In McDermid’s  ‘A Place of Execution’ for example, the ‘murder’ is not what it initially seems.  The same is true in ‘Bleeding Heart’ by Mary Freeman.  Don’t feel that you must involve murder but realize that if you do not, you will have a more difficult task ahead of you. 

 

            Getting Started

            So where do you begin?  Usually, mysteries across the various subgenres either begin with the discovery of the body or with events that lead quite rapidly to the discovery of a body or a crime.  Mystery is a dramatic genre.  The stories tend to be strongly paced rather than languid.  Even in the mildest of cozies, the Miss Marple series by Agatha Christi, event follows event briskly.   Readers are likely to get restless if your crime does not occur until the middle of the story.  Again, you can make this work, but it will be much more difficult to do well. 

            You do not need to show us the body in paragraph one, although that’s a fine start if it works.  But it is a good idea to bring in the crime by the end of chapter one, or at least introduce a powerful plot element that leads directly to the discovery of the crime.   You want your mystery to start off strongly, however you start it. 

 

            No Deus ex Machina, Please

          A Deus ex Machina, literally, ‘god from the machine’ is an ending where some outside factor suddenly reveals the answers to our questions.  In mystery, it means someone suddenly reveals the workings of the crime and readers had not one clue to point them toward that resolution.  While you do not want your readers to guess ‘whodunnit’ ahead of time, neither do you want to spring that answer on them as a total surprise.  In the ideal mystery, readers look back thinking, ‘of course…the clues were there all the time!’  Of course you have cleverly disguised them or distracted the reader with ‘red herrings’ so that they slipped past unnoticed.   When Sherlock Holmes explains his conclusions, we see the clues that he interpreted and we failed to notice.  We may not make his leaps of connection, but Conan Doyle gave us the opportunity to do so. 

 

            A Mystery By Any Other Name...

          Mystery does include a host of subgenres.  Each has its own rules and reader expectations.  They include Hard Boiled Detective, Police Procedural, Amateur Sleuth, and Cozy.  The Hard Boiled is usually in first person and often ‘noir’ and features a tough private eye, such as Raymond Chandler’s Phillip Marlow books.   Amateur Sleuth mysteries feature a non-police professional who solves the crime, such as Dana Stabenow’s Kate Chugak mysteries, and are probably the most popular of the form.  Police Procedurals feature a police professional, either a police officer or detective, a forensics person, or perhaps a district attorney.   Cozies are ‘softer’ in tone, violence and sex happen off stage, and the villain is local.  Think Christi’s Miss Marple or Hercule Poirot books. 

 

             Mystery is a popular genre with loyal and dedicated readers.  Keep your eye on the newspaper and start thinking about that next mystery  and who sill solve it.